What Amazon’s Customer Review Guidelines Mean for Kindle Book Writers

When it comes to people who either write and/or publish Kindle books on the Amazon Marketplace, it’s always a good idea to stay abreast of how self-publishing your work may need to change depending on any new, revised or expired guidelines. One of these in particular that has been in the news recently with the Amazon Marketplace is the different ways as to how customer reviews can now be handled.

Ultimately, these guidelines are being used to give the average reader a fair and unbiased look at what exactly is available in a book as well as whether or not it is well-written or of a general high quality.

Amazon has recently removed hundreds of reviews from writers in the same niche. While asking fellow writers for reviews is still an option, just keep in mind that if the writer has published in the same niche as your book, their review might not be published.

Another key portion of these new review guidelines you should pay special attention to concerns how the usage of promotional content in reviews is no longer accepted on the Amazon Marketplace whatsoever. This is arguably the most critical portion of all in that many Kindle book authors relied on their publishers to create positive reviews for them. This particular portion of the new rules can even include when authors linked with one publisher offer reviews of books by authors also associated with that very same publisher.

In layman’s terms, Amazon is no longer allowing anyone at all to make reviews solely for promotional purposes.This ultimately makes it so there’s now a much fairer, old-fashioned sense of competition between competing Kindle book authors and publishers on the Amazon Marketplace.

In summary, the new Amazon Marketplace rules have specifically been adjusted so as to ensure that the only people who can (and subsequently are) actually leaving reviews on the site are those who’ve actually bought, read and finished the product in question – and all through the Amazon Marketplace itself. In addition, verified purchase reviews will clearly marked as such, and should they be positive, will understandably be much more beneficial to you as a Kindle book writer or publisher.

These verified purchase reviews are actually so important that they’re almost always given precedence over other existing reviews. This obviously has a plus and down side in that if said review isn’t very complimentary, it will obviously hurt you that much more.

All in all, while the new guidelines now in place over at the Amazon Marketplace may be a bit of a chore to follow, it’s making the Amazon Marketplace a much better – not to mention easier – place to sell and market your Kindle books than ever before. And for that, surely, we can all be thankful!